PARTICIPANTS:

Kissinger: I see
that Stilwell's now beginning to take a tough line even though he was so
cautious last week when I was talking of tough action. I saw his
incoherent message. As I understand it, the North Korean proposal is
evil, immoral, dangerous, etc. but it amounts to unilateral North Korean
withdrawal of their guardposts. I want to know what's wrong with it.
Would they withdraw all their guardpost and personnel from our side?
Supposing we said there must be freedom of movement but that we can
accept the proposal to remove the guardposts?

Habib: We couldn't send
our guards over to their side. There are two kinds of personnel. They
are suggesting that the security or guard personnel be split apart, but
other personnel could presumably still move around within the joint
security area.

Kissinger: But we
would get rid of the North Korean posts on our side and this would be a
good thing.

Habib: There may be
some problem of the effect on the armistice agreement.

Kissinger: I want to
play it as a concession on the part of the North Koreans. We should
construct our answer so that their proposal looks like a concession
rather than a deal. Let's first get rid of the guardposts.

Kissinger: Yes.
First get rid of the posts, then deal with the problem of access by our
security personnel into their part of the area.

Clements: I
like that idea. Our people get treated so badly. They get kicked, spit
on, cursed, and we are unable to tell our people to protect themselves.
Every morning they have a special meeting where they are told to take
abuse and to maximize their restraint. Remember our man who got kicked
in the throat not long ago?

Kissinger: Who was
that? When?

Habib: A Navy commander
who got badly kicked in June 1975.

Brown: We had to
protect the Pentagon the same way during the riots. Our men had to take
almost endless abuse without reacting.

Kissinger: You know
my preference was to hit the barracks but that was overruled. Now, we
have to find a way of winding the thing up. The practical consequences
will be that they will have removed the guardposts.

Clements: And
the guards, (mistakenly believing that the North Korean barracks in the
JSA area would be removed under the
August 25 proposal)

Kissinger: Their
barracks will stay. As I understand it their two guardposts on our side
would go. We have no posts on their side so we would dismantle
nothing.

Habib: I am reading
from the North Korean statement: "In order to prevent a conflict between
military personnel of both sides and in order that each side insure the
security of each personnel in the conference area, [Page 04]Panmunjom, we believe it most
reasonable to separate the security personnel of both sides in this area
with the MDL between them so that they may perform their guard duty
moving in their respective area only. This will make both sides have
their guard posts only in their respective part of the conference area.
And this will prevent military personnel of both sides from both
encountering each other and passing by the posts of the other side. Then
there will occur no conflicts.

Kissinger: In effect
they are offering to dismantle their guardposts. We should say to them:
We notice your proposal amounts to removing two guard posts on our side;
we have none on your side; we believe there should be freedom of
movement in the zone and suggest that our Secretaries meet to discuss
this. First we have to get their assurances about the safety of our
personnel, then we can discuss implementation of drawing a line. We
should play it up as a retreat on their part. Phil — you will have to
find some form of words to do this.

Habib: We will draft a
message and we will also draft guidance. We will have to clear both with
President Park.

Kissinger: Every
time I wanted to hit hard at the North Koreans last week I was told that
Park didn't want to
take military action. Now I gather he wants to do something.

Clements: He
really was playing it very soft at the beginning of this business.

(Turning to Clements) But we called this meeting to discuss your
plan. Go ahead and explain it.

Clements:
(Using a map of North Korea and pointing to the area of Sonjin Hang
Harbor) We all recognize this coast line is fairly open. Here is a fuel
dump. It is easy to get into the harbor. I would like to interrupt to
emphasize that in Defense we are treating this matter on a really strict
"need-to-know" basis.

[text not declassified]

Brown: Better make that
November 1 rather than December 1.

Clements: It
will be too damned cold.

Kissinger: How about
November 2? It may not make the front page that day. What would they
do?

Kissinger: I'm just
thinking the process through. No matter how we did it, the North Koreans
would charge us with being responsible for it. Then we would be faced
with questioning by the Senate,Foreign Relations Committee and what
would we say to them?

Brown: According to
Buchen, we would have to report under the War Powers Act to both the
Speaker and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

Kissinger: What
would we say to them as to why we did it?

Clements: Our
Assistant General Counsel says you would not have to report under the
War Powers Act.

Kissinger: They (the
Congress) will say that we have to report and if we don't want to lie we
would be forced to take a no-comment line which would in effect be
admitting that we did it.

Brown: In explaining
why we would have to say that it was a response to the murder of two
Americans.

Kissinger: Our
explanation would look very weak, particularly after two months (??) I
respect your position. Last week I was in favor of firm action but it
was overruled at Vail, not by this group. It was a tragedy. I have never
seen the North Koreans so scared.

Brown: If we have the
plan developed, it would be ready if we wanted to use it. [text not declassified]

Kissinger: I think
this is a good way.

Clements: I
like it. It doesn't have an overt character. I have been told that there
have been 200 other such operations and that none of these have
surfaced.

Kissinger: It is
different for us with the War Powers Act. I don't remember any such
operations.

What barracks were we going to hit in North Korea?

Clements: We
thought we would need 36 Max (??)

Kissinger: I am
positive they would not have hit back. Unfortunately, we can't do it
now. My idea had been to cut down the tree, get out of the JSA, take out the North Korean barracks, and
then stand down. Of course, there was the risk of further
casualties.

Could we have done it with Walleyes? How many Walleyes would it have
taken? Could we hit the barracks from our side of the DMZ?

Brown: I don't know how
many bombs it would take because I haven't studied the target, but I'm
sure we could hit it from our side of the DMZ [text not declassified]

Kissinger: (The
advantage of a Walleye would be to) avoid counter-battery fire.

Clements: Why
would an air strike avoid counter-battery fire?

Hyland: Because they
would not be responding to masked artillery. (??)

Clements: I
still think they would have reacted.

Kissinger: You told
me last week of your concerns and asked me to relay them to the
President, and I did. But the real problem, I think, was not your
concerns but the President's speech on Thursday night saying that there
were no Americans in combat anywhere in the world. Second, the President
was in Vail and I was on an airplane, not the best arrangement for
conducting military operations. I don't think the decision had anything
to do with your recommendation.

If we can first get the North Koreans to guarantee the safety of our men,
then we can cooperate with them on practical plans. We can say that we
will have our Secretaries work out the problem of movement of personnel
in the JSA while maintaining the
principle of the freedom of movement. There are two things to do. First,
draft a message on the JSA and second,
[Page 10]continue to develop the
military plan (for hitting North Korea) but also look at other targets.
Then we will have contingency plans next time if there is a further
incident.

Brown: I would like to
stress once more the close hold we have put on this operation.

Clements: For
example, Don (Rumsfeld) knows about the plan but Holcomb doesn't.

Kissinger: Let's
keep our extra deployments in Korea until we get the guardposts removed
and get some satisfaction from the North Koreans. Don't remove DefCon 3
until we get positive action. Let's try to get a MAC meeting Friday or Saturday.

Habib: We will ask
tomorrow and get one Friday. I don't think the North Koreans will
stall.

Kissinger: Then
after the meeting we can start the drawdown. After we get some
satisfaction, we can start to move things down but I want to keep
something there for a while.

Clements: We
have in mind keeping some of the F-111's in Korea.

Brown: We have sent
Stilwell a planning message outlining our views about drawing down from
our current alert but they have been told to make no changes without
execute order. So far, we have not had any comments from Stilwell on our
plan. The B-52's will continue flying through Sunday. If we allow them
to down for a while, we would [Page 11]then have the option of resuming them as a pressure tactic if the
North Koreans keep giving us trouble.

Kissinger: (to
Habib) Ask for a
MAC meeting on Friday. Demand
assurances from the North Koreans for the safety of our men and then
discuss the deployment of our security personnel. The first thing is to
get the guard posts removed. Then we can let the Secretaries work out
movement of personnel in the JSA.

Habib: I don't think we
should make an assurance about safety a precondition.

Kissinger: I want
the principle accepted first of all.

Habib: Why don't we
imply that they have accepted it or talk on the assumption that they are
accepting it?

Kissinger: You can
say on the assumption that the North Koreans accept demand for
assurances for the safety of our personnel, we are prepared to have them
remove their guardposts on our side and to discuss the deployment of our
security personnel, while maintaining the principle of freedom of
movement in the JSA.

We will discuss the future of B-52 operations next Monday.

Source: Ford
Library, National Security Adviser, NSC Staff for East Asia and Pacific Affairs,
Convenience Files, Box 27, WSAG
Meeting, Korean Incident, August 18, 1976. Top Secret; Sensitive.
The minutes contain handwritten revisions by Gleysteen. The
meeting occurred in the White House Situation Room. Gleysteen sent
these minutes to Hyland under an undated memorandum.↩